Green Eggs and Ham Sandwich

As a tribute to my current rotation, pediatrics, I hereby call upon Dr. Seuss for my culinary inspiration—also, much thanks to my hearty chicken, Betty White, who obliges to churn out green eggs day after day.

Green Eggs and Ham Sandwich, Mexico City Style

Adapted from Food and Wine

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2 chipotle chiles in adobo, minced, plus 1 teaspoon of adobo sauce from the can

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

4 soft demi baguettes, split and toasted if desired – I used my Rustic Whole Wheat Pillows

1 medium tomato, sliced 1/8 inch thick

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

8 large eggs

8 thin slices of Gruyère cheese ( 1/2 pound)

1 small Hass avocado—peeled, pitted and sliced 1/8 inch thick

8 thin slices of baked ham (6 ounces) –I used honey baked ham which I think made it extra tasty.

In a small bowl, thoroughly blend the butter with the minced chipotles and adobo sauce and season with salt and pepper. Spread the chipotle butter on both cut sides of the baguettes. Arrange the tomato slices on the bottom halves of the baguettes.

Heat a griddle or a very large nonstick skillet. Add the olive oil and, when it’s hot, crack in the eggs. Cook over-easy over moderate heat, turning once halfway through cooking, about 1 1/2 minutes. Season the eggs with salt and pepper and top each one with a slice of the Gruyère cheese. Set 2 eggs on the tomatoes on each baguette bottom and top with the sliced avocado and ham. Close the sandwiches and serve right away.

Green eggs are real! I have been asked so many questions lately about the biological aspect of the egg-laying process. Chickens, like humans, are born with a plethora of eggs in their ovaries—a thousand or so. Each day, one little yolk is released from the ovary into the oviduct, and over the next 25 hours, slowly accumulates albumen, or egg-white, around the yolk until it is finally shelled and released into the cloaca—the same hole out of which chicken poop comes! Both the intestines and the oviduct dump out into the same cloaca—but you know, I’ve never seen chicken poop in the nest!

I would eat them in a coop, I would eat them next to poop.